A 68-YEAR-OLD Wolverhampton businessman who was attacked when a furious father caught him abusing his 10-year-old daughter has been jailed for six years.

A 68-YEAR-OLD Wolverhampton businessman who was attacked when a furious father caught him abusing his 10-year-old daughter has been jailed for six years.

Clifford Lindley, of Hughes Avenue, Broadmoor, desperately tried to escape, but with his trousers round his knees, he barely managed to get out of the youngster's bedroom before he was caught and punched repeatedly.

The girl's father, praised by police for his comparative restraint, then dialled 999.

Officers found Lindley had spent weeks grooming the north London youngster on the internet after she used a library laptop to go online, before persuading her to meet him for up to three illicit sex sessions.

On the last occasion he had just taken several photographs of the half-naked child on his mobile, when her father returned home unexpectedly.

The pensioner was on bail at the time for arranging a child sex holiday in the Philippines.

At Harrow Crown Court, Lindley, who has two grown up children by his first wife and an 11-year-old daughter by his third, pleaded guilty to meeting his victim following "sexual grooming" and causing or inciting to "engage in sexual activity".

The grey-haired grandfather, said by his barrister to be ridden with remorse, remained impassive as judge Susan Tapping, told him prison was inevitable for such "serious offences against children of primary school age".

She said despite the prospect of a jail sentence hanging over him following his initial arrest for facilitating the commission of child sex offences in the Philippines, he began hunting for further victims within weeks of arriving in London as part of his bail conditions.

The judge added that because there was a "significant risk" of him targeting children on more occasions, Lindley would not only have to be registered as a sex offender for life, but be subject to an indefinite Sexual Offences Prevention Order forbidding him both from working with children or ever being on his own with them again.